Where History Walks
TUDOR TIMES
“One generation comes, another goes and mingles with the dust,
And thus we come and go, and come and go,
Each for the moment filling up
Some little place, and thus we disappear
In quick succession, and it shall be so,
Till time in one vast perpetuity be swallowed up” ( author unknown)
Photo Henery Hawk
As I attended the Lorain Growth Corporation party last week at the beautiful new Rose Cafe and Bath
house, I couldn’t help but think as I looked out to the December sky as it kissed the cold grey
waters of Lake Erie that for nearly two centuries people have witnessed similar scenes replayed time
and again in their own allotted time span of life.
The Lorain County Metro Parks is doing a fantastic job in “bringing back” the past glories of the public
area known as Lakeview Park . A paragraph informs the reader of the “history”as to how this land
became “public use”
Leonard Miller Moore, the Mayor of Lorain from 1916 to 1917, was the energy behind purchasing
Lakeview Park for the city. Three offers where placed before the Mayor and City Council from the
Chamberlain Estates. The first was to purchase the 19 acres along the lake for $42,500. The second
included the land offered in the first proposal and 21.9 acres on the south side of West Erie Avenue for
$52,900. Finally, Chamberlain offered all of the 119 acres along West Erie Ave. for $100,000, which
Mayor Moore believed would be a “good buy” if the city could get the same price for portions of the
property that they would not be able to use. After much discussion and some concern that the property
was too far out of town for citizens to enjoy, councilmen decided to purchase 19 acres north of West
Erie Ave and 21.9 acres south of West Erie Ave for $53,551.38.
The attendees of the party were warm and full of cheer, lights blazing, a huge fire (more for ambiance
than necessity ), rafters dressed for the holidays, large windows glistening and sparkling showing the
raw beauty of the winter sky, the waves at war with the wind and yet also reflecting the congeniality
of those gathered inside-we were protected from the cold and grey night.
Photo Henery Hawk
I remembered reading, during the research for the Black River Bicentennial , about the first owners
of the property that became Lakeview Park.
What a different perspective they would have had - not the people of Lakeview in the
early 1900’s - but farther back, much farther back to when the deep, dark forests
obscured the shoreline , the land untouched by the hand of man.
Edmund Gilmore, the first owner of the property, at the age of 48 left Massachusetts on foot
to walk the 600 miles to what is now Lorain with his son Aretus. Edmund Gilmore in 1811 purchased
1,000 acres of property in the new settlement.
Edmund Gilmore built a log cabin on his land upon arrival, and after a home was ready,
left his son Aretus in charge, returned to Chester, Mass for the rest of his family, returning with them
by ox team in June 1812. They lived on this farm for the rest of their lives. Edmund built the first
frame barn in Lorain County, Ohio Genealogy of the Lorain, Lorain County-Ohio, Branch of the
Gilmour-Gilmore Family , New Hampshire Line. Compiled by Charles Hamel ( Revised 1954)
Imagine, as you enjoy the beautiful new Bath House, wander down to the lake to feast your eyes on a
Lake Erie sunset, the probable first home of Edmund Gilmore to which he brought his wife
Elizabeth in 1812
Pioneers-John Buxton
When the rough journey from the east was completed, the next thought was for providing a shelter.
The log house, for so many years the only structure seen or attempted in pioneer settlements, has often
been described.
In one recorded instance, the family dwelling contained one room eighteen feet square, with greased
paper for windows, a door of split boards with strips across, and wooden hinges—not a nail in the
whole building; a puncheon, or split-lot floor covered about one-half the ground included in the four
walls, no upper floor, and no chimney, except a stone wall built up five feet to keep the fir from the
logs.
The protection against intrusion from the outside world in one cabin is thus graphically pictured by
the pen of one of its inmates: :We hung up a quilt, and that, with a big bull-dog, constituted the door.”
When the four walls of the home were up, the settler proceeded to “chink” the openings between the
logs, using pieces of wood on the inside, and plastering them with mortar on the outside.
During the leisure of the evenings, the inner sides of the logs would be hewed smooth, and the bark
removed from the joists above. Sometimes there was an upper loft, and even stairs leading to it, but
usually a ladder was the means of communication. In rare cases a sleeping-room would be partitioned
off on the ground floor, but generally the bed stood at one end of the sole room, concealed behind
chintz curtains, which would often disappear as the question of clothing became more and more
pressing. The bedstead was made of smooth, round poles, while elm bark served as cords. Seats, tables
and shelves were made as time would allow, and according to the skill of the occupants; occasionally
some of these articles had been saved from the breaking up of the old home in the east.
The domestic economy within this family temple was of the most primitive character. A Dutch oven, a
couple of kettles and a spider were considered essentials, although many an outfit fell far short even of
this idyl of completeness.
Judge Robert F. Paine, of Cleveland, once used these words in describing the home accommodations of
his boyhood in Portage County: “We possessed few dishes of any kind. There was a man in Trumbull
County who made them of wood, and his advent into the neighborhood would cause more excitement
than the establishment of another national bank in Cleveland to-day.
We ate on what we called trenchers, a wooden affair in shape something like a plate. Our neighbors
were in the same condition as we, using wooden plates, wooden bowls, wooden everything, and it was
years before we could secure dishes harder than wood, and when we did they were made of yellow
clay.”
Theodore Wolcott and Gad Hart spent the winter of 1806 in Farmington township. Desiring straw with
which to fill their beds, they marched to Mesopotamia, five miles away, and as the woods were so dense
that their bundles could not be carried through, they were compelled to travel out of their way a long
distance, going along the Warren path to Grand River, and then coming back on the open highway
afforded by the ice. The first bed on which Heman Ely, the founder of Elyria, slept, on his arrival in this
section, was made of the cloth covering of the wagon in which he came, and filled with straw brought,
with the greatest difficulty, from a barn located miles away. Cleveland Memory